The Thief's Journal (First American Edition, First Printing, 1964)

Language: English

Published by Grove Press, Inc., New York, 1964

  • First Edition
  • Hardcover
  • Used
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Seller: Coffee Cat Books, Chapel Hill, NC, U.S.A.Coffee Cat Books

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Hardcover

Condition: Used - Very good

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Item description from seller

Very Good / Very Good. Unmarked. First Edition, First Printing. 1964. Grove Press, No. GP-326; NY. Hardcover. VG red cloth boards, gilt spine lettering, corners sharp. Binding straight, tight & square. VG dust jacket, unclipped. Light even toning, faint rubbing, minor softening at head and heel. Protected in mylar cover. 268 pp. Octavo. Genet's autobiographical account of the European criminal underworld of the 1930s, w/ a foreword by Jean-Paul Sartre drawn from his study Saint Genet. Ships in a box, quickly & w/care. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ SYNOPSIS & HISTORY: The Thief's Journal (Journal du voleur) is Jean Genet's autobiographical exploration of the European criminal underworld during the interwar years of the 1930s. Set largely within the Barrio Chino district of Barcelona alongside journeys across Spain, Italy, Poland and Nazi Germany, the narrative reconstructs the author's lived experience as a vagrant, thief and sex worker. Genet subverts conventional bourgeois morality by erecting a personal moral framework wherein betrayal, criminality and degradation are transfigured into spiritual and aesthetic devotion. Grove Press published the work in New York in 1964, translated directly from the French by Bernard Frechtman. An extensive introductory foreword by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, extracted from his 1952 biographical study Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr, grounds the literary work within post-war existential philosophy. Frechtman's close translation captures the lyrical, dense syntax that defined Genet's avant-garde prose style. Barney Rosset's Grove Press issued the work during a period of American legal battles against literary censorship, following court decisions regarding works by D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and William S. Burroughs. Championed by prominent Parisian intellectuals including Jean Cocteau and Simone de Beauvoir, Genet secured an international reputation as a dramatist and novelist, leading to a presidential pardon from a lifetime prison sentence in France in 1949. First published in France as Journal du voleur by Librairie Gallimard in 1949, the work is studied today across mid-century French literature, existentialism and LGBTQ literary history.…

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Bibliographic details

Title
The Thief's Journal (First American Edition, First Printing, 1964)
Author
Jean Genet; Jean-Paul Sartre (foreword); Bernard Frechtman (translator)
Publisher
Grove Press, Inc., New York
Publication year
1964
Condition
VERY GOOD
Dust jacket
Dust Jacket Included
Binding
Hardcover
Language
English
Edition
First Edition.
Printing
1st printing
Item weight
49 ounces
Dimensions
Octavo
Seller catalogs
LGBTQ, Literature, Memoir

Coffee Cat Books

Chapel Hill, NC, U.S.A.

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AbeBooks seller since September 15, 2021

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